Mr. Chairman, I'll be brief, unlike my Liberal colleague. I merely have a question for Mr. Dorais.
In passing, I'd like to congratulate you on your staff's professionalism. Each time we need to contact the Agency about some problem a taxpayer is having, we receive top-notch service.
I'd like to verify something. About a year and a half ago, a journalist reported on an incident of fraud involving telephone solicitation businesses that were soliciting funds on behalf of charitable organizations. The reporter mentioned several cases in which inquiries were conducted. He even went so far as to put himself in the shoes of someone being solicited. The businesses in question would ask taxpayers if they would like either to make a cash donation or purchase some promotional items. In many cases, they would choose the promotional items, but would not receive a tax receipt, even though they had been led to believe by the solicitors that they were making a charitable donation.
In other cases, the solicitation operations amounted to out and out theft because only a minute portion of the funds collected were turned over to charitable organizations. Even the directors of these charitable organizations knew that there was a problem, but solicitation represented their only source of regular funding.
Since the CRA is authorized to inquire into similar incidents, would we be well advised to suggest that you take a close look at these types of operations? Basically, they are misrepresenting themselves to the taxpayers with false promises of tax receipts. Could you not investigate their operations, on behalf of all taxpayers? I can give you the background material supplied by the reporter from the Journal de Montréal.